The South is Red

To be quite honest I don't remember what the exact category was that I signed up for in discussion last monday. However I already had an idea in mind for a development goal that is very important and often overlooked. I think that All humans should have access to at least the most basic amenities to live. These are: Food, clean water, shelter and medical treatment. While it would be great if all humans on earth had access to all these this is simply not the case. Many don't even have but one of the amenities I listed on a consistent basis. I also would rank these 4 amenities in importance and I believe that clean water is the most important of the 4. The main reason for this is that a human can survive for only about 3 days without water. Also many diseases, like malaria, can be transmitted through dirty water. The solution is a campaign to install a proper well in every town lacking in one. Engineers without boarders currently have projects working on this in El Salvador and Ghana and the U.S. Peace corps have projects throughout Africa.

Well now on to the values part. The biggest injustice on the planet is the unbalanced distribution of wealth. I'll be perfectly honest here and admit that I believe that a communist or at least market socialist system is necessary to achieve true equality in the world. Yes this system Failed in the past and it would probably fail again if used however the flaw in every political system is not the system it's self, it is the people who institute the system. The leaders of the soviet union for example became too interested with their own wealth, forgetting the people. They also put so much of their effort and wealth in arming their militaries. If human greed could simply be put aside then all our problems would be solved. However this, of course is impossible.

Well I guess I really answered my own question. World equality will never happen. But those of us who actually have a higher sense of caring can at least try to make life a little bit more tolerable for the poorest in the world by constructing for them things like clean wells.

I will end with a quote that I think sheds light on a crime that society keeps committing without any hint of guilt.

"With a small fraction of the hundreds of billions of dollars spent on the Iraq war, the US and Australia could ensure every starving, sunken-eyed child on the planet could be well fed, have clean water and sanitation and a local school to go to."
Bob Brown